Book 3: Maplecroft

Title and Author: Maplecroft (The Borden Dispatches), by Cherie Priest

Release Date: September 2014 Trade Paperback
Publisher: ROC published by The Penguin Group
Genre: Horror
Target Audience/Age Group: Adult
Part of a Series? Maybe, it's not clear.
Will the Reviewer Keep It In His/Her Library? Yes

I eagerly picked this up because it features Lizzie Borden. That's her on the cover, with her famous axe, which, it turns out, she is very good at using. Who isn't fascinated by her parents' murders?

The book takes place in 1893 and 1894, after Lizzie was acquitted of the murders. She and her sister Emma have moved from their father's house into the "mansion" they'd built for themselves. The new place features several enhancements built in secret to Lizzie's designs. She even has a laboratory in the basement.

Emma is secretly a prominent marine biologist, hiding behind a pseudonym because she's a woman. She's also very ill, dependent on Lizzie. They have no servants, for reasons that become clear as one reads more into the book. Their only friends are the local doctor, a biologist who received a sample from Emma and Lizzie's lover, Nance O'Neal.

In the world created by the author, the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden make perfect sense and were justified. So does the sister's voluntary isolation from society. 

I liked it. The story was creepy, not terrifying, but it kept my interest through to the end.

I did find errors. On page 9 "that strange mass which dissolves by atoms on the back right table." Though as far back as the ancient Greeks people have theorized the world is made of tiny stuff, atomic theory wasn't known in the 1890's.

On page 159 a funeral is held at a funeral home. This wasn't done in the 1890's. Funerals were held at home.

On page 369 it's said humans evolved from water creatures. The fossil studies that result in this theory had not been done by the 1890's.

When I was done reading the book I wanted to refresh my memory about the murders, so I looked at the website for the Fall River Historical Society. They've published a 1100+ page book on Lizzie Borden (see Parallel Lives).

The Providence Journal published a series on the murders, available online at http://www.providencejournal.com/topics/special-reports/lizzie-borden-anniversary/content/20130621-part-one-to-me-i-see-nothing-but-the-densest-of-shadows.ece

A great blog on the Bordens and the town of Fall River, Massachusetts, is http://lizziebordenwarpsandwefts.com

Book 2: The Warren Commission Report: A Graphic Investigation

Book Two is an uncorrected proof, advance reader copy
of The Warren Commission Report: A Graphic Investigation. The final book will be in color; this version has black and white illustrations on some pages and only uncompleted sketches on others.

Title: The Warren Commission Report: A Graphic Investigation

Author/Illustrators: Dan Mishkin, Ernie Colon, Jerzy Drozo
Publisher: Abrams Comicarts, an imprint of Abrams
Genre: Non-fiction history
Target Audience/Age Group: Adults
Part of a Series? No
Will the Reviewer Keep It In His/Her Library? No

I read Vincent Bugliosi's book on the JFK assassination and am a complete believer that Oswald acted alone. Every presidential assassin, successful and failed, except John Wilkes Booth, acted alone. One obsessed person can make a difference and history is full of them. Refusal to believe that possiblity is a denial of our power as individuals with free will and insulting to us human beings.

I believe there would be no conspiracy theories if the Kennedy staffers had not interfered with law enforcement. It wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last (think Chappaquiddick Island) the family's courtiers muddied the waters so much facts could never be confirmed.

I am a fan of the author/illustrator's illustration of the 9/11 report (The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation) and have it in my library. This ARC indicates this new book will help readers understand why the Warren Commission's work left room for conspiracy theories. It's not clear if it will help people understand that the facts do not support them.

Book 1: The Forbidden Library by Django Wexler

We resolved to publish something about each and every book we were given at Comic-Con as a thank you to the publishers who so generously gave them to us. Some of these books were ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) of books that may change before publication, but most were not. They cover all genres and age groups, and we will not review them in any order whatsoever.

Book One was chosen because our scribe's son stood in line to get it and had the author personalize it for her.

Title and Author: The Forbidden Library, by Django Wexler

Illustrator: Alexander Jansson (He's not credited on the cover or title page!)
Publisher: Kathy Dawson Books, published by The Penguin Group
Genre: Fantasy
Target Audience/Age Group: Children
Part of a Series? It looks like it, but you can't tell from the dust cover or end pages.
Will the Reviewer Keep It In His/Her Library? Yes

Alice lives with her father in gentile poverty. Home-schooled and happy, she eavesdrops on her Dad one night. Everything changes after that night. Her father leaves her and dies in a shipwreck. His entire estate is liquidated and she is sent to live with a relative she didn't know she had. He lives in a huge house with strange servants and puts her to work in his library. What a cool place that building full of books is!

I could not put it down and read it through the night it was given to me. It left me wanting to know what happens next. I try not to read the first book of a series until subsequent volumes have been published, but since it wasn't clear this was part of a series, I read it. I still can't tell if Mr. Wexler is going to write more books, but I will follow him at http://djangowexler.com Maybe I'll get the next book at Comic-Con 2015.

Naomi Novik's Uprooted

Comic-Con attendees are pretty mellow. They know they can't get all the  exclusives they want to buy or and won't get into all the panels they want to see. 

Our scribe stood in many lines with other readers waiting for the books publishers were giving away. As one would expect, they talked to each other, about the books being distributed, the authors signing them and the chapter samplers we'd picked up earlier in the Con and read.

One book that was widely discussed was Naomi Novik's latest, Uprooted. Lots of people read the sampler because her Tremaire books are very popular.

The 41-page, 3 chapter booklet sucks one right into the story of a young woman and her village's protector, a dragon. Everyone who read it was eager to read more. 

Then they turned the last page of Chapter 3 and found this:

AARGHH!! Why does a publisher do that? Get us all excited for a book that's a year away!

Most of us wouldn't have read the damn sampler if we'd paid any attention to the back, but I didn't talk to anyone who had.

The copy of the book on display at the publisher's booth? It was a dummy. A dummy dust cover put on another book.

Best Comic-Con Purchases

After much discussion of the stuff they acquired at Comic-Con, members agreed on the best of it all. No Marvel fans here, not many DC fans either, and though the Game of Thrones graphic novel prequels were discussed long and hard, they didn't make the cut. Neither did the Supernatural Funko characters, though we would have included Mark Shepard's unique Crowley if we'd been able to get hold of it. The Outlander bandana that one member would not take off her arm almost made the cut, but since it was free it was disqualified. So was the foam Sharknado chainsaw, cool as it was.

The Sharknado Tube 

Did everyone watch Sharknado 2? BEST SEQUEL EVER!!!

A $20 T-shirt came with the tube so it was easier to rationalize the price.

The National Cartoonists Society Batman T-shirt

It makes us wish we could all draw.

Pink Archer Dolphin Puppet

It's way cooler than the original grey dolphin puppet–almost as cool as Pam. Part of the proceeds are donated by Factory Entertainment to the Susan B. Konen Foundation and The Pink Ribbon Story.

The First Volume of The Don Rosa Library

"The Son of the Sun" signed by Mr. Rosa himself!

First Issue of Groo vs. Conan

Finally! After all those Sergio & Mark panels promising us new comics, we get one.

85 Books From Comic-Con

We're back from San Diego and our annual trek to Comic-Con. Crowd control was better this year, though none of us even tried to get into Hall H. We heard it wasn't crowded if you went late in the day, but the partying campers discouraged us.

The Con was scattered all over the place this year. If you got a ticket at a panel you had to hike to the Hyatt to fulfill it–a hotel so far away they ran a shuttle to it. The blood drive was there as well, and we wouldn't be surprised if donations were down this year because of the distance. We gave at home instead of making the trek.

Members covered the whole exhibit hall and everything outside it, including some of our favorite annual panels, like The Sergio & Mark Show, Quick Draw, Oddball Comics and the ultimate panel, Starship Smackdown. It was great to get an update on what's happening with favorite characters at the Hermes panel on The Phantom and the ERB, Inc panel (who doesn't love Tarzan–can't wait for the movie being filmed in England right now). The panel on Don Rosa was a highlight for this scribe because her favorite comic books are his and Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge comics.

This year there was no "must have" swag like there has been in the past. Many people are writing that this was a ho-hum year for Comic-Con and speculating that it is collapsing under its own weight. It is huge, bigger than one person could possibly cover in four days. San Diego wants to keep it, though it's hard to see why after reading the information on the convention center site. It's the biggest one held there; the #2 convention (cancer researchers) attracts 17,000 attendees compared to 130,000 Comic-Conners. For a once-a-year event, the city is going to double the center's size and build on the grassy area by the water. Seems insane to us.


For GHPALS, the Con will continue all year as we came away with 92 free books, courtesy of the various publishers that exhibited: Penguin, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, Random House, Del Rey and we apologize if we left anyone off this list. Sherrilyn Kenyon had her own booth and gave away copies of her books as well as a great bag. Here's a photo of some of them.

One might think these books were all science fiction or fantasy or some combination, but they aren't. Besides the expected Star Wars, vampires, werewolves and zombie books, there's a graphic novel of The Warren Commission Report, Physics for Rock Stars and even a book about being a Navy Seal. Several are aimed at children or young adults (what a huge market that has proven to be), but there's also erotica!

The PALS have decided we need to thank these publishers for giving us a year's worth of reading, so we decided to write a blog post about every single book we received even if it's just to say no one wanted to read it (though we would explain why no one was interested.)

We also want to thank the publishers for the great way they handled crowds at their booths. Lines were organized and moved quickly. They had spotters who prevented line jumping. Their staff was unfailingly polite and good humored, kind and controlled, even during the last hour on the last day. We look forward to seeing them next year.

Update 10 August 2014: Now that we've sorted them out we've discovered duplicates, so we changed the title from 92 books to 85. We did a blind drawing: PALs reached into a bag and picked a book out. Since they couldn't see what they chose until it came out of the bag, there were a few surprises. We agreed there would be no swapping, so this will be an interesting experiment.

Mesa Water Responds

GHPALS is a bit anarchistic and no one is responsible for checking the e-mail. We're too busy arguing with each other over books and stuff. 

No one checked the society's e-mail since last summer, we're embarrassed to say. We wouldn't have done it today if we hadn't changed all the passwords because of the Heartbleed Virus.

If you want to get our attention, write a comment. We pay attention to those.

We completely missed the e-mail sent to us by Mesa Water District's PR lady. We've redacted her name and contact information to protect her privacy (if you want to get in touch with her, go to Mesa's website). We thought it was a nice message and are embarrassed we had not replied to it in anything like a timely manner (9 months later makes us look bad). We apologized profusely in our reply. We also said we all drink Mesa water, which we do. Some of us, however, dilute it with spirits first.

Greetings,

My name is Xxxxxx Xxxxxx & I’m the Public & Government Affairs Manager at Mesa Water District.  This email is in reply to the post today (Fri. Aug. 2) on the Goat Hill Public Arts & Literary Society blog (http://ghpals.blogspot.com/2013/06/mesa-water-districts-new-logo.html).  It’s pleasing to know that you & your colleagues are following Mesa Water’s activities, & that you are aware of recent news about the District.

Mesa Water is indeed trademarking its new name & logo -- which involved a 2 ½-year effort in collaboration with Mesa Water’s constituents & consultants -- & the District anticipates announcing the approval of its trademark very soon (the report by the OC Register on this was unfortunately erroneous).  In any case, as of Jan. 1^st, 2013, the District's name is Mesa Water District with "Mesa Water" for short (not "Mesa", the Register got that wrong too, among other inaccuracies).

Mesa Water hopes that these & other outreach efforts will result in customer awareness, community connections, & conversations like these.…
Meanwhile, Mesa Water remains financially strong -- with a AAA rating -- and will continue to provide high-quality, safe, reliable, and affordable water (still just 1 penny for 2 1/2 gallons) with 100 percent locally sourced supplies (which reduces the District's energy use and carbon footprint).  For more information, you can always visit our website at www.MesaWater.org.  Thanks again, & please feel free to contact Mesa Water any time.

Sincerely,

Xxxxxx Xxxxxx, Public & Government Affairs Manager

Mesa Water – Dedicated to Satisfying our Community's Water Needs